I needed to clean the gutters in May, the kind of job that gets put off every single year until the water starts pooling somewhere it shouldn’t, and I realized halfway through gathering supplies that my ladder only reaches about two thirds of the way up my own roofline. It’s fine for the porch. It is not fine for the gutters over the second story.
I knew the Osei family had a taller one because I’d seen it leaning against their garage for months, unused as far as I could tell, and I walked over and asked if I could borrow it for an afternoon.
The Handoff
It turned out to be heavier than I expected, an extension ladder, and getting it across the street by myself was its own small production. One of them came out to help carry it, and we walked it over together, a little awkwardly, the way two people carrying something long and unwieldy always look a little awkward, adjusting their grip every few steps.
Setting it up against my house took longer than it should have. I’m not entirely confident on ladders anymore, not the way I might have been at thirty, and I spent a good five minutes just testing how solid the ground was underneath it before I trusted my own weight on the first rung.
What I Found in the Gutters
Once I was up there, it was the usual mess. Wet leaves that had been sitting since fall, a few tennis balls that must have come from somewhere, and one bird’s nest, thankfully empty, tucked into the corner near the downspout. I cleared what I could reach from that side, came down, moved the ladder, and went back up on the other side of the house to do the same.
I’m not going to pretend this was pleasant work. It wasn’t. My hands were filthy within minutes and I had a moment near the top of the ladder, reaching a little too far to grab a clump of leaves, where I genuinely thought I might lose my balance. I didn’t. But I came down after that and decided the rest of that section could wait for another day when I felt steadier about the whole enterprise.
Returning the Ladder
I carried it back myself that time, in sections, because I didn’t want to interrupt anyone twice in one afternoon over something I should have been able to manage alone in the first place. It took three trips instead of one, which is a little embarrassing to admit, but I got it done.
When I knocked to say I was returning it, one of the kids answered the door, and told me, very seriously, that their mother said I could keep it as long as I needed, that they never use it anyway. I said I was already finished, thanked them, and left it leaning where I’d found it.
What Stuck With Me
It’s a small thing, borrowing a ladder. People do it constantly, or used to, before everyone had their own version of everything and stopped needing to ask a neighbor for much of anything. But there was something in the asking itself that I liked, walking across the street, explaining what I needed, being handed something without any real negotiation about it.
I don’t think I would have thought twice about this kind of exchange twenty years ago. It would have just been normal, the way borrowing a cup of sugar used to be normal. It feels a little more notable now, maybe because it happens less often, or maybe because I notice these small exchanges more than I used to, now that the house is quieter than it was and every bit of contact with the people around me registers a little more clearly.
A Small Guilt About the Tennis Balls
I did keep the tennis balls I found in the gutter, which in retrospect I probably should have offered back to the Osei kids, since I have no dog and no real use for them myself. They’re sitting in a bowl by my back door now, slightly waterlogged, doing nothing. I keep meaning to walk them across the street and just never quite get around to it, which feels like a fittingly small and unfinished way to end a story about a borrowed ladder.
The Second Half of the Gutters
I never did finish clearing the far side of the house, the section I abandoned after that wobble near the top of the ladder. It’s been sitting there for weeks now, half done, and every time I look up at that corner of the roofline I think about borrowing the ladder again and every time I find some reason to put it off a little longer. I know exactly what I need to do. I’ve just decided the leaves that are already there can probably wait for a slightly less humid afternoon, or a day when my nerve about ladders is running a little higher than it currently is.
I mentioned this half finished job to Wanda, expecting a lecture about letting it go too long, and instead she told me she stopped climbing anything taller than a step stool years ago and has simply accepted that some heights aren’t hers to manage alone anymore. I’m not there yet, but I understood, standing at the fence, that I might be getting closer to that same conclusion than I’d like to admit.